Rogers reportedly did not cite what those restrictions are. He also noted that the NSA doesn’t access motor vehicle or passport databases to check against images of US citizens.

“In broad terms, we have to stop what we’re doing if we come to the realization that somebody we’re monitoring or tracking has a US connection that we were unaware of,” Rogers said. “We have to assess the situation, and if we think there is a legal basis for this, and we have to get the legal authority or justification.”

Rogers also said that he does not believe that former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden acted alone, but he believes that Snowden was not being manipulated by Russia or another foreign power. "Could he have [been]? Possibly. Do I believe that that's the case? Probably not," he said.

Outgoing congressman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) has said that he believes Snowden had help from Russian authorities before ending up with temporary asylum in Russia.

Legal is a relative term, and they damn well know it. A secret order by a secret judge of a secret court ruling an Orwellian NSA program as legal is all they got at this time. You be the judge (heh) whether or not that will hold up to the scrutiny of history.

This is exactly what we all expect from these ass hats. Of course they say it's all legal. We couldn't possibly expect these clowns to come out and say, we are sorry, we found out that this is totally illegal and we will now be heading to prison to show all of the country that we are sorry. Not!

Rogers also said that he does not believe that former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden acted alone, but he believes that Snowden was not being manipulated by Russia or another foreign power. "Could he have [been]? Possibly. Do I believe that that's the case? Probably not," he said.

The "we do not do this to our citizens" is such bullshit !Great you follow the american constitution but that doesn't make it ok to do on every single other individual out there. Mass scale information gathering is wrong. Period.

NSA has a system for facial recognition that they say they don't use on US citizens and immediately back off if they suspect a Us connection in their investigations.

Yep, seems totally legit.

To be fair, the systems for the analysis for the data they currently possess have never been for me the point of contention when things the NSA does are revealed. Its their means of data acquisition that's caused real problems. They can look at the photos they have using whatever tool they want, they just have to stop the unreasonable search and seizure thing. Also, perhaps stop degrading the security of our electronic communications to make it easier for third parties, governmental and criminal, to break into encrypted comms. A barely functional system for the analysis of images for faces could be dangerous, but at this point its like complaining that your grenade launcher toting neighbor also bought a 3d printed 22 caliber pistol.

Of course, it could be argued that we should never let up on the NSA until they make substantive changes to their policies to not violate the law.

Many countries are investing in mass collection of biometrics from citizens. India is a prime example, recording the iris scans of over a billion people. Ideally, the government should have a sample of everyone's DNA on file. All in the name of efficiency of course.

"He also noted that the NSA doesn’t access motor vehicle or passport databases to check against images of US citizens."

"in broad terms, we have to stop what we’re doing if we come to the realization that somebody we’re monitoring or tracking has a US connection that we were unaware of,"

That sounds more like, we do not use access motor vehicle or passport databases because then we definably know that they are US citizens so we don't use them. Facebook and other sources can be faked and are not reliable so we use them, but from it we can not determine if its a US citizen .

Key word here is "unilateral" -- meaning, presumably, that US citizens who have access to facial recognition technology are permitte to use it against NSA employees in the same way that NSA employees are free to use it against US citizens.

Quote:

“In broad terms, we have to stop what we’re doing if we come to the realization that somebody we’re monitoring or tracking has a US connection that we were unaware of."

Key words: "that we were unaware of". Meaning, it's all fine so long as they were aware of the US connection.

Quote:

“We have to assess the situation, and if we think there is a legal basis for this, and we have to get the legal authority or justification.”

"if we think there is a legal basis for this" = "We stop. We laugh. Then we keep doing exactly what we were doing."

I suppose we could give Admiral Rogers some credit for masterful manipulation of the English language. But credibility? I think not.

As nearly everyone in the Federal government has forgotten (or intentionally ignores), the Constitution is law. It's the highest law. And there's this thing called the Fourth Amendment. So even if it's rubber stamped by some lesser court/law, that's irrelevant to its legality.

It's not that I have an issue with facial recognition. That's out of the bottle now.

It's not that I have an inherent issue with government agencies using it. It'd be a great tool if you could feed someone's face in, then start getting pings when they pass a monitored camera; even ignoring OMGTERRARISM, consider the utility in kidnapping cases.

It's that I don't trust the NSA not to build some rules-as-written legal database of when and where faces have been seen, in contravention of the rules-as-intended.

To my mind there's a distinct difference between going out and locating information (in this case, saying "I want to know about this specific face"), and passively aggregating and analysing data ("Give me a rundown of every face at this location from T-24hours to T+24hours").

People think about better known bloviators like Ted Cruz and Michelle Bachmann, but IMO Mike Rodgers is one of the most ignorant and uninformed people in government in modern times. He makes up these pronouncements from whole cloth, and then presents them as if they were facts he'd obtained with his insider status. He "knows" more about the Snowden situation than anyone else in public life, but there's never any independent verification of any of this foolishness he comes up with. I'm looking forward to his last day in Congress, while hoping fervently that he doesn't end up on Fox or talk radio. I'd like him gone from the public discourse altogether.